|
Renouncing your US citizenship now costs $450!!!
I guess the moral of this story is the government crooks will steal every penny they can get out of your wallet. DITCHING THE U.S.A. Giving up citizenship now costs $450, as more people are doing it By Ashley Kindergan Saturday, February 4, 2012 Everything has a price — ditching your American citizenship, for example, will now set you back $450. New consular rules published in the Federal Register this week lock in a new fee first implemented on an interim basis in 2010 for renouncing U.S. citizenship — a process that was once free. A State Department spokesman said processing applications for renouncing citizenship requires lots of staff time. [ Well if the reason we pay taxes is to pay these government bureaucrats like this State Department spokesman why do we have to pay an extra $450 for this government service???? ] “It’s a serious decision, and we need to be certain that the person renouncing fully understands the consequences,” said spokesman Noel Clay. Some observers say a growing number of people are renouncing citizenship to avoid the hassle of American tax laws governing Americans living abroad, which a National Taxpayer Advocate report issued in December called complex and confusing. The report noted that the 1,534 people who renounced their citizenship in 2010 represent a tenfold increase from the 146 who did so in 2008. Andrew Mitchel, an international tax attorney who tracks renunciations, wrote on his blog this week that about 1,781 people gave up their citizenship in 2011. Mitchel said many Americans who do not plan on returning permanently to the United States simply would rather not deal with the complicated filings and disclosures or the large penalties for certain mistakes. “The U.S. is very unusual in that it taxes based on citizenship — most other countries tax based on residence,” Mitchel said. “People get very frustrated with these rules.” Other newly published rules this week will bump a passport application fee from $55 to $70, and the passport security surcharge will double to $40 from $20. Adding new passport pages was once free, but the new rules set an $82 fee. Finally, parents will have to pay $100 to register American children born overseas — up from $65. Ashley.Kindergan@thedaily.com |